Skiboarding -- a sport ridden on twin-tipped, short skis without poles -- started to get big in the late '80s with the invention of the Big Foot and other short skis. As big tricks and big air have come to dominate inline skating, they've crossed over into skiboarding.

	Jarred Flaherty won the X Games qualifier, but had to settle for 5th place.

It's come a long way, baby.

Some of the biggest air -- and biggest crashes -- of the X Games so far were seen coming off the set of three sequential jumps built into the steep course.

Longtime skiboarders like Micah Fisher-Rhoese, Mike Nick and Jason Levinthal all went big with 540s, frontside flips and misty 720s. But in the end it was a former skier who walked away with the gold medal.

Chris Hawks, 25, has only been competing in the sport for a year -- he first strapped on a pair of skiboards during the filming of Warren Miller's Snowriders 2 film. Before that he was an alpine skier who made the switch to freestyle seven years ago. But his big, smooth tricks were enough to win -- but not by much.

"I kind of thought if I stuck my trick that it would get me through," Hawks said. "I feel awesome. To come from a skiing background, I didn't know if I could do it."

Mike Nick, who won last year's skiboarding Slopestyle event and was featured in Winter X commercials, went big enough to finish round one in first place, just ahead of Fisher-Rhoese and Neal Lyons.

He finished the second round tied for first place with Bryce Raney, after attempting a fakie 540 but blowing the landing. Visibly upset, Nick skied off the course and away from the crowd.

Round three would be the deciding factor.

Nick's tricks were plenty big, but Hawks, the final competitor of the day, pulled off two huge 540s. As a group of riders milled about the finish line, Hawks final score flashed across the big screen: He'd won the event by just one-quarter of a point -- finishing with 73.25 to Nick's 73.0.

"Yesterday I was stomping my runs," Nick said after the results were posted. "I had four or five runs in a row, and I just dialed them in -- pure butter. I couldn't get it today."